ELS is a unique PhD degree program that produces students with a broad appreciation of environment-organism questions in the context of natural and anthropogenic environmental change."

Environmental Life Sciences (ELS) is a novel graduate degree program that provides PhD-level training in several complementary fields focused on interactions between organisms (plant, animal or microbe) and their environment. ELS provides trans-disciplinary training that includes aspects of biology, geosciences, chemistry/biochemistry, environmental engineering, sustainability, social sciences, and mathematics.

As interdisciplinary graduate program, it is housed in ASU's Graduate Education but is administered by the School of Life Sciences. Additional participating units are the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Earth and Space Exploration, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Global Institute of Sustainability, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (see link to Schools and Centers).

Graduate students are trained in core classes, seminars, reading groups and research clusters. A focus is the collaborative and integrative study of the effects of environmental variation on fluxes of materials and energy across scales ranging from the organism to the globe. Our overall goal is to provide a unique PhD degree program that produces students with a broad appreciation of environment-organism questions in the context of natural and anthropogenic environmental change.

Courses Offered

Resources

The ELS PhD Program makes funding offers in conjunction with admission offers. The program director works with faculty who might serve on a prospective student’s advisory committee to develop funding from a variety of campus resources, such as research assistantships funded by faculty grants, teaching assistantships, and fellowships. Read more about Funding